Reverse logistics is the process by which goods and materials are returned to a product vendor by a product distributor, such as a retailer, flowing backwards through the supply chain for the purpose of recapturing value and/or proper disposal. Reverse logistics involves physically transporting and disposing of returned goods, issuing accurate invoices to the product vendor for the returned goods and correctly crediting the product distributor for the returned goods.
Systems and methods for billing product vendors and crediting product distributors for returned goods are known. A disadvantage of such known systems and methods is that items may be added to a shipping container systematically, but not physically, creating a discrepancy. Such a discrepancy can also occur if items are physically added to a container but are not added systematically. In either event, amounts invoiced for the returned goods are also incorrect because they are based on the amount of items in a container systematically, that is, as stored and computed by a computer memory and processor, which can be different from the actual amount of items in the container. Incorrect invoices require further additional processing of items and reconciling actual amounts of returned items with invoiced amounts. Thus, a need exists for a system and method for processing returned items that minimizes the disadvantages associated with known returned item processing systems and methods.